Re-Reviewing Beers After Time With Full Affect

I think it's an interesting idea. I've noticed that rating beers is not as easy task. Sometimes I will drink a beer and dislike it, only to completely change my mind and start liking it a few weeks later. My tastes seem to change so much it's hard to accurately review a beer without drinking it over a period of time. Of course that means the review process is highly uneven since I obviously drink my favorite beers far more often than beers that don't initially impress me.

 

If I didn't just put something like great beer, will have another, then I am probably not going to re-review. I have gone back and updated reviews where I was either 1) didn't leave a review, just a rating 2) hammered when I wrote it and it didn't make sense, not like my reviews do 3) wrote great beer, will have another 4) Picked up something that wasn't in the initial review 5) add notes on aging a beer, for example something I cellared improved etc. I actually just did this for DKML after drinking one with another year on it.

 

My view is that a review is a reflection of a given persons impression, of a given beer, at a given time and place .

That's all.

Now, that said, if one revisits a beer, that one had X years ago, and one may think that the beer is better or worse than the initial experience, doesn't change the first experience. Let it lie.

We are able to edit reviews, so, click on your old review, and add an update. Just acknowledge, in your updated review, that things change. Our palates evolve over time, beers fluctuate, shrug.

 

I think it is a great idea that won’t be adopted.

We used to be able to review by serving dispense, e.g. on tap, bottle, on cask because that can make a difference in what the beer is like. That was taken away.

We were told that happened because there were a noticeable number of users who appeared to be gaming the system and boosting their review count by simply entering the same review under different servings, e.g. on cask when there was no such beer.

 

Interesting idea, although I was JUST updating some scores/notes on my previous review of an IPA and just added an UPDATE note, with a little change to reflect my changing opinion and palate. Good either way...

 

Re-reviews are good - in theory, it's an updated, more knowledgeable/experienced you taking another crack at it. I'm ok with losing the old score, but it would be nice to keep the updated posting date.

 

I wonder if they could include the new review, but not up the beer total?

I.e. Someone has reviewed/rated Wheat by Boulevard twice, but it only shows up once in your "beers" list with the latest review/rating date.

I suppose that would be pretty similar to Untappd in that you have a 'unique' beers tracker (what BA would track), but can otherwise check in the same beer an unlimited number of times for a 'total beers consumed' tracker (which BA would not track).

I'm no programmer, and I don't know if that's possible. Just weighing in with my thoughts.

 

@KarlHungus

Not only do I agree with you on all points, I have thought this same limitation on BA for quite some time. I would love to do some re-reviews and have them totally separate from my first.

Even though I am not a fan of Untappd, I like the fact that you can 'Check In' any number of times on a particular beer and add new comments and a new rating...but let's not get me started on the character limit OR the fact that so few people ever post an entry with anything insightful about the beer they are drinking...I guess those are the 'tickers' of the craft community.

 

I do this all the time.

I believe in overwriting your original beer if it's different enough to warrant it, or otherwise leaving it as is if your experience matches your previous review close enough.

As others have mentioned, if you feel either your palate has changed, or the beer has changed significantly, it's worth leaving a note of update, especially if it's a beer people are fond of cellaring, or if it's a different vintage.

And I'm pretty happy with there not being new entries on BA for each vintage of a beer--unless there's an ingredient or process change, I believe there should be one entry for a given beer (obviously, I'm not a fan of Untappd's cluttered mess).

 

If I'm following you right, to achieve that, you can delete your review, then review it again...

 

I do re-reviews by simply adding to what I've already written, usually right up front with the original review following in its entirety - there's no sense in going over a lot of basic info. again. Some of my reviews have been very long and I don't think I've ever run out of room to add in my new thoughts on the beer, or in some cases, how the beer has actually been changed over the years. As for score, I'll often change that as well and just note what the original was. I don't think we need to change anything, I like it as it is.

 

I've done this a few times myself, primarily on beers of an annual release (Black Butte, Abyss, Dark Star, etc). I typically keep the notes from before and even note the rating from that time, then simply add my info for the new tasting and rating for that. Only really touch on new aspects or changes that I noticed from the last to the current. It is interesting to see how the beer(s) change with aging or different blends from one release to the next.

 

I agree with @drtth that this won't be adopted even if we could iron out some details that I feel would be hard to come to an agreement on. I will also say that I disagree with @beertunes point of view - without saying he's wrong (am I am hoping/assuming he will say the same).

I look at it this way: my rating of the beer should reflect how well made/enjoyed that beer is now. Put in another light, I think of it as if someone was asking me right now, "what do you think of this beer?" If I was drinking that beer, I wouldn't answer, "Well three years ago, I thought this..."

Now this presumes a desire to revisit - which I do not think is anyone's responsibility, even if I encourage it [occasionally on a certain recurring thread]. I think it's a nice thing to do, though, in the right situations.

Speaking of, my experience is similar to what other people have indicated, I rarely have much to change when I do a re-review (unless i am upgrading a rating/half-review), and I generally note what changed and whether I altered my rating as a part of the re-review.


P.S. there are fairly easy ways to get your review date updated if you really do care about such things.

 

It:s interesting. I just talk about a beer on-line just like I talk to everyone else about beer. The amount of information that we have, here, is amazing.........I stress not about old reviews, but then again,I'm not a serial reviewer.

 

When I try a beer again that I haven't had in awhile I'll check my review to see if I want to update. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't, but still like having the option.

 

I did it rarely in the past. Not at all now. Shrugs.

 

It might be interesting if you could review the same beer as many times as you wanted and essentially show up in the reviews of that beer as your personal average score toward the beer with a link or something to the sequential text reviews.